Our KaK and Our Lives

Are we really getting younger?

The KaK (Kit and Kaboodle) is our personal simulation of the nonconscious and conscious experience and creativity over the course of our life. It changes with every second of our life and, although the changes from each second are small in terms of the simulation, each experience, and each creative effort changes the direction of our ongoing development. The KaK is a complex system, and like all complex systems, it develops, ages, and eventually ends.

Many complex systems follow this same developmental path, though it might not be obvious that this is true. For example, a natural disaster is a complex system, and tracks an aging path like we do, though each disaster is entirely unique, from basement flooding to global extinctions.

The general process tracks the building of the KaK simulation. New complexity is added every second, and even local breakdowns in cells and structure nonetheless make the KaK more complex and unique.

Like all complex systems, though, our personal simulation becomes both deeper and more brittle over the long run. The need for maintenance and repair increases and various systems eventually begin to cross thresholds that lead to breakdowns. Nonetheless, the KaK serves its personal and evolutionary purpose for our entire existence, even when neurodegeneration is occurring, until we die.

The same is true for all complex systems, though they appear superficially different. A core indicator of this aging process is what I like to think of as corruption. This isn’t the criminal notion of taking bribes, though it includes that. Corruption in a complex system is the undermining of the core purpose or mission of the system. This corruption occurs even when there is no criminal behavior. It inevitably occurs during the typical dynamic that we can think of as the life of a complex system.